So Near, So Far Away

On 24 July 2023, FedEx pilots represented by ALPA rejected a tentative agreement with the company by a vote of 57-percent to 43-percent.

Founded in 1931 and representing over seventy-thousand pilots in the employs of forty U.S. and Canadian airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the worl

d’s largest and most influential pilot union.FedEx Master Executive Council (MEC) chair Captain Chris Norman stated: “Our members have spoken and we will now regroup and prepare for the next steps. In the coming weeks, the FedEx ALPA leadership will meet to establish a timeline for assessing pilot group priorities moving forward. FedEx pilots remain unified and that will drive a new path that will help produce an agreement that all FedEx pilots will be proud to support,”

Moving forward, it is expected the U.S. federal National Mediation Board will convene a status conference with both parties. A timetable for such events has yet to be determined.

On 12 June 2023, ALPA announced the FedEx Master Executive Council (MEC), the entity by which the union’s FedEx pilot members are represented, had voted to approve a tentative contract agreement reached on 30 May with FedEx management. A ratification ballot was subsequently opened on 05 July and closed on 24 July.

The agreement summarily rejected by FedEx pilots would have provided major pension improvements with alternative pension options, significant hourly pay-rate increases, an amendable period recovery payment, and other improvements to quality of life. The agreement included a thirty-percent pay increase, a thirty-percent increase to the pilots’ legacy pension, and a fully-developed and equally valuable company-funded Market Based Cash Balance Pension—the latter serving as a durable replacement for FedEx’s legacy pension program.

The rejected contract occasioned the industry’s largest per-capita investment in a pilot contract and substantially raised the global bar on pilot retirement.

ALPA President Captain Jason Ambrosi, after receiving a detailed briefing germane to the tentative agreement, applauded FedEx pilots, stating: “The FedEx pilots successfully fought an intransigent management and secured this deal that, if ratified, will raise the bar on retirement for all pilots. This tentative agreement has the highest value achieved among major carriers in the last twenty-years and we’ll strive to build on this pattern in future pilot contracts.”

Contract negotiations between ALPA and FedEx management commenced in May 2021. That they shall drag on a good deal longer seems a safe bet.

FMI: www.alpa.org